Tomorrow is the Gooding & Co auction sale in Amelia Island, where noted Porsche collector, Jerry Seinfeld, is selling a number of his cars. Eighteen soon-to-be ex-Seinfeld cars including sixteen Porsche models will cross the auction block in this huge sale, which has just twenty-nine Porsches entered in total.
Talking to an American collector friend, this batch of cars is estimated to be circa ten percent of the complete Seinfeld collection. The famous comedian buys and sells many cars – I’ve driven some ex-Seinfeld machinery myself – but most previous sales have been well and truly under the radar. Dealers entrusted with Jerry’s cars who have tried to cash in on the Seinfeld kudos as part of their pitch have allegedly not had an easy ride afterwards, so it is no great surprise that an auction was chosen to dispose of this sizeable tranche, or that Gooding got the commission: the famous Amelia Island sale is the premier East Coast auction in the US and comes just as the market starts to gather pace following the lulls of winter. Many record Porsche prices have been achieved by Gooding at this sale.
Seinfeld shares Porsche Excitement
“The reason I wanted to bid these cars farewell in this way is really just to see the look of excitement on the faces of the next owners, who I know will be out of their minds with joy that they are going to get to experience them,” says Jerry. “Each one of these cars is a pinnacle of mechanical culture to me. Many are the best examples that exist in the world. I’ve loved being entrusted with their care, and I’m proud of the level to which we have brought each and every one of these wonderful machines. Honestly, if I had unlimited time, space and attention span I would never sell one of them.”
Situated in the north-east corner of Florida just inside the Georgia border, the almost perfectly named Fernandina Beach is finely dressed in Southern Victorian architecture and lined with more than thirteen miles of beaches. It’s a great escape for the rich and famous, but there will be no escaping market forces when twenty of Seinfeld’s own Porsche cars cross the podium from 11am tomorrow.
Classic Porsche Prices Market Trend
Prices at the very top end of the classic Porsche market have tailed off in recent months – at least for the cars you see at open sale. Sellers claim that many deals are done behind closed doors for stronger prices than seen in public, but even in these secret deals for the very best cars, buyers are applying pressure. Twenty percent off a $5 million car is a sizeable discount, so if the market is showing obvious softness, and both parties know it, there’s a poker game happening.
Doing eighteen poker deals behind closed doors, most likely through middle men, would be a long and expensive pain in the arse for Herr Seinfeld. Sending these cars to auction, with ten weeks of everywhere promotion, and a glitzy end-of-sale in prospect for Jerry, looking at the faces of buyers set to be “out of their minds with joy” is a reasonable recipe for respite from a high-end Porsche market that has consistently failed to deliver record-breaking prices since the middle of last year.
Affordable Classic Porsche prices remain steady
Further down the price range, our Porsche Valuations market price tracker is seeing continued health in the market for cheaper classic Porsches. Collectable RHD water-cooled 911s are in fine form, with low mileage Porsche 996 GT3s and GT3 RS models selling quickly. Good RHD Porsche 930s are still good sellers, as are RHD 911 3.2 G50 Carreras (especially the Club Sport) and 964 Carrera 2 models in top condition.
Seinfeld’s big hitters – the 550 Spyder, 718 RSK, and 917/30 – will fetch what they fetch and add to the existing market trend info, but more interesting will be the market for the Carrera GT prototype. Bought by Seinfeld directly from Porsche, and disabled before purchase from any possibility of being driven, this handmade CGT prototype has never been previously offered to the market. For some, it may be a potential jewel in the crown of a water-cooled Porsche collection, for others it is a pricey handmade paperweight. If any car were to illustrate prevailing price sentiment amongst serious Porsche collectors, then this should be it.
My favourites in the big Seinfeld sell-off are the Volkswagens: a 1964 Volkswagen Camper with less than 20k miles in simply perfect condition and a beautiful 1960 VW Beetle in original, unrestored condition, with just 15,500 miles on the clock. Of all these cars for sale, why sell this one? Assuming America turns out for Amelia, a top estimate of $55k on the Beetle could prove significantly behind the market. I would be keeping this car: it would be the last car I’d sell. Which means that Seinfeld has even nicer Beetles. Lucky man.
All images copyright and courtesy of Gooding & Company. 550 Photo by Mathieu Heurtault. Other photos by Brian Henniker.
Finally resurrected my 1976 Porsche 911 Carrera 3.0 today. As I walked around the car while it warmed up on tickover, I noticed the road tax had run out in July 2011, so it had been parked up for more than four years. On the upside, it is now tax exempt.
Cranking the Carrera 3.0 back to life was easy enough. I had charged the new Odyssey battery up to full strength over a couple of days, swapped the terminals over from the old battery and then stuck the new one into the car, reconnecting the various positive feeds to who knows what (long time since I did all this stuff). Dropping the negative terminal on and reconnecting the battery disconnect made it ready to go.
Ignition on, fuel pump buzz, key turn, oil pressure light off. Then key off and turn – it started on the second attempt and soon filled the garage with smoke. Trying to drive it outside was an issue, as the clutch had seized on. Not ideal. I knocked it off and tried working the clutch a bit but nothing would free it. Cranking it out on the starter in first, the car started and took off for the bins. Brakes wouldn’t stop it on gravel, so I quickly knocked the key off and avoided a crash into the bins and my big trailer.
I rocked it backwards and forwards a bit in gear, wound it backwards on the starter, wound it forwards again, there was a burst of revs and the clutch was free. Saved me having to do anything brutal with a tow rope! Now the car was ready to turn a wheel, I put Ted in the 911 and took it for a quick spin around the village checking for seized brakes. All seems OK: I will book it for an MOT this week and we’ll see what it needs to pass the test and get back out there. Here’s some video:
I’ve been pushing myself to keep the Porsche 924 Turbo post-paint rebuild progress going. Really I am working on stuff that doesn’t involve ordering the numerous replacement body seals this car is crying out for, but sooner or later I’m going to have to bite the £500 bullet.
In the meantime, I have been ordering cheaper stuff, like contact adhesive, bulldog clips and clamps to help re-stick some trim, including headlining and B-post interior vinyl (below), as well as the rear side panel coverings. I had hoped to just re-stick those and button up refitting the side windows, but of course taking the side panels off exposed cheap speakers, which have been hacked into the metalwork, so I have to sort those out first.
Really I have stripped a load more of the car along the way: doors, trunk and rear seats etc. I have two other complete interiors which I could use, but I’d like to keep as much of the original trim as possible in the 924, so I am trying to give it all a bit of a lift instead. The trunk/boot is completely stripped now for a good clean before that all goes back together. I have heat-gunned off some crappy sound deadening in the deep rear sides and that looks better. I will replace the failed sound deadening with Dynamat Extreme – I still have loads of that around from my hifi fitting days, so it will go to good use in the 924.
First port of call for the Dynamat was in the centre console. This was looking decidely tired with the dried up internal foam sound deadening falling apart and crumbling all over the carpet, so I heat-gunned that off and replaced it all with Dynamat, which will deaden any rattles with some foam glued on top. I had already ordered a bit of spray-on carpet dye, so I cleaned the console up and applied that, working it in by hand. I was pleased with the results:
Looks even better in person than in my iPhone pics. Only downside is it makes the carpet pile quite stiff, but that eases with a bit of a going-over with a vacuum cleaner. I dyed the gearshift carpet surround also and have ordered a new leather gaiter for the dog leg shifter. I also stripped the faces off all the clocks including the centre console auxiliary gauges and cleaned the glass inside – made a big difference to the look. The fascia for the clocks has three 1980s alarm LED holes drilled into it, so I have scrapped that and bought an undrilled one on eBay – £18 delivered. Waiting for that at the mo.
I had an old Toronto SQR48 head unit put aside to fit but a bench test showed the output stage is blown so no sound to the speakers. I’m torn between fitting a modern, clean-looking Bluetooth/iPod head unit or going back to eBay and looking for something more period. It is not a high quality hifi setup in this car, as I am leaving the flat door panels uncut, so I will probably stay with period.
I am also changing all the locks to get a single matching key sorted. The ignition switch created a problem as this steering column top set is a four-screw column switch setup and my other spares are both three-screws, so I couldn’t just bolt a complete new assembly in (different switches and wiring etc). Anyway, I worked through a Rennlist 924 lock change guide and went like a dream with cobalt drill bits. Downside is I now need a four-screw column shroud as the old one was missing a bit. Typical old Italian car thing – like the cigarette burns in various places around the driver’s seat.
What’s next? Well, the wheels are off, I stripped the crappy old tyres on Saturday and will have the new Bridgestone rubber fitted this week. I was going to refurb the wheels beforehand but decided against that for now as I want to get this MOT’d (safety inspected) soon. With the car up on axle stands, I have been thinking about dropping the front crossmember and suspension wishbones off for blasting and a repaint. All that surface corrosion on my nice clean 924 bothers me.
The steering wheel needs a re-trim (or at least a re-stitch), but then I have a Momo 924 boss and nice old 1983 Prototipo from my 911. Maybe they should go on. The doors are being rebuilt internally with stripped and regreased handles and window regulators. Really I could do with adding some sort of remote central locking, but I have to keep remembering I’ll be selling this car when it’s done, so the new owner after me can take it to whatever the next level is (I will probably still do the central locking).
I bought a new bonnet badge for it and need to order some body decals too – probably just the long ‘Porsche’ one under the rear lights. It looks good with just the simple silver lines as per the early press pics.
As my small car collection lay mostly unused last year, I made “use it or lose it” my car motto for 2016. The little 1981 Porsche 924 Turbo has enjoyed a lot of attention so far this year (spent another full day on it yesterday), but this morning I finally pushed the 1976 911 Carrera 3.0 out of its corner and took a good look at it after a few years unused.
Porsche Paint Microblistering
I discovered some microblistering in the paint last year, caused by using a car cover (genuine Porsche Tequipment) in a relatively damp environment, so I expected to find a bit more on the other side closest to the wall. Turns out I underestimated the amount as that entire rear quarter panel is covered in tiny blisters – the car will definitely need a repaint. I am sort of OK with it as it will give Robert at Racing Restorations a chance to repair some other panel stuff I have never been happy with. It won’t happen this year, but I’ll have a budget for it in 2017.
The main aim at the minute is to fire the engine up and get it ready for an MOT sometime in April. Advice from Anthony at Tuthills is to pull the spark plugs out, crank the engine until the oil is up to pressure, then put the plugs back in and fire it up. I need a decent battery for that and my compact Odyssey PC680 battery is totally shot so I have a new one to fit. To fit the new unit, first I had to get the old one out.
Porsche 911 Battery in Smuggler’s Box (not RHD)
This little Odyssey lives in the smuggler’s box held secure in a tidy aluminium mount. I fitted this as a younger, more flexible person, so my 48 year-old self had a good curse at that idiot while trying to get this all out single-handedly. Whatever possessed me to stick it down here I do not know! Funny how it all changes in ten years. Anyway, half an hour later I had it out and in the boot of the Cayenne. I have a new Odyssey battery here so will stick it on the charger overnight and fit it later in the week.
A quick look at the battery showed my pretty aggressive boost charging of it last year to try and start the car had done the battery no favours: the centre is totally distorted. No big loss as it was not responding to a charger by then anyway, but it shows how little tolerance for misbehaviour these things have.
I do like the lightweight battery ethos in this lightweight 911, but am going to have to be more regimented about using a maintenance charger on it. Not leaving the car sitting around for years would probably also be a good idea. My nice bright damp-free new garage at home will help!
I was sad to hear of the death of Bob Watson yesterday. As one of the UK’s best-known independent Porsche mechanics, Bob Watson Engineering was for many years based in Middle Aston, which is where I met him and went on to spend quite a bit of time with him.
Born in March 1950, Bob’s Porsche life began in March 1975, when he took a job with Maltin Car Concessionaires in Henley-on-Thames. Owned by Chris Maltin with partners Rod Turner and Charles Holdsworth-Hunt, the business held franchises for Porsche, Ferrari and Lamborghini. I can imagine the twenty-five-year-old Bob rolling up for work at Maltin surrounded by seventies exotica – it must have been fantastic.
Back then, Porsche did all of its training at the factory. Three or four times a year, Bob and his UK colleagues would be sent to Stuttgart for one week studying engines and doing rebuilds, the next week’s visit would cover transmissions, then a week on brakes and suspension and so on. The training continued up to 1982, so it was no surprise to find that Bob was very hot on standard Porsche models from ’75-’82 including the Carrera 3.0, 911 Turbo 3.0/3.3 and, of course, the 3-litre 911 SC. He built some amaing cars, including Steve’s 3.5-litre 930 (below). But I’m jumping ahead of things here.
In September 1984, Bob decided to call it a day with Maltin and headed off to work for John Greasley at Dage Sport in Aylesbury. Greasley’s now famous Blue Coral-sponsored Porsches were a big deal in motorsport and Bob was well into racing. That brought him up the country and also put him at the back end of 935s, as Greasley was running a pair of them: one left hand-drive genuine car and a right-hand drive replica so the real one wouldn’t get damaged.
Porsche racing was a big deal in the mid 1980s. Though the Porsche Club was smaller than it is nowadays, the club was a big force in racing and the Giroflex-sponsored series drew big crowds and big name drivers. Many of the UK’s leading air-cooled specialists made their names around this time: Bob enjoyed a great rivalry with Neil Bainbridge’s cars in the Porsche Club series and other famous races including the Oulton Four-Hour Endurance.
Racing continued to be very important when Bob struck out under his own name. Photos hanging in Bob’s offices showed racing from all over Britain and of course at Le Mans (Bob also raced until the mid 1990s). From his workshop in Bicester and later Middle Aston, Bob Watson Engineering became a big name in UK Porsche. A quick search for Bob online will show just how many 911s he laid hands on: all sellers were delighted when they found Bob Watson history in an air-cooled car.
Bob took to Motec Engine Management early on and used it very successfully on a number of Porsche builds and others: I once watched him tuning a V12 Jaguar E-Type which he had fitted with Motec. The fastest air-cooled Porsche I can remember being driven in was a naturally aspirated 2.8-litre Motec-equipped 911 ST, which Richard Tuthill took me for a run in sometime during 2010/2011. Even on rock hard dampers and tyres, this was absolutely the quickest car: you simply would not believe a 911 could move that fast uphill. Not until I rode in the 997 GT3 Cup R-GT rally car on a wet tarmac stage was I so impressed again, and that’s not rose tinted glasses. Bob also built the famous hillclimb 911 of Roy Lane: another incredible Porsche.
I can’t remember when I first went to Bob’s, but it was early in my Porsche life, as he was only half an hour from my house. Back then, I had a 911 SC Cabriolet and had started writing for various Porsche magazines. I knew Bob had a dyno as Tuthills used it quite regularly: Francis would be clicking fuel pumps up and down notch by notch in typical Francis fashion, while Bob would shout above the fans: “for f**ks sake Francis, give it half a turn”, trying to speed up Fran’s progress. No one has ever succeeded in that, but Bob always gave it a good go. I took my SC down there for Bob to have a look and we spent an hour or more chatting, even though he had plenty of other stuff to do.
There was always a bit of craic going on at Bob’s and I don’t remember one conversation with him where I didn’t learn something. He was a font of knowledge so I organised an ImpactBumpers.com group visit to Bob’s one year – the only Porsche specialist we have ever visited as a group if I remember correctly. We spent so much time talking whenever I saw him, it is only now I need a photo of Bob that I realise I don’t have any: I have used a pic of Alan’s S on Bob’s dyno pending better photos (email me a pic).
Many air-cooled 911 owners were delighted to have Bob fettle their cars on the dyno. Including me, as Bob sorted me out with a run just after I got bought my Carrera 3.0 Coupe in 2007 and did a first dyno run elsewhere which suggested it was lean at the top end. He spent an hour with me on the rollers and wouldn’t take a penny for his trouble. He gave me great advice on what to do next – “just drive the nuts off it” – which of course I followed religiously.
Bob’s dyno was the benchmark for PCGB racing and for years he served as Technical Consultant for the 930 Register. Alan Drayson at Canford Classics was a big fan of Bob’s work and would tune all of his new engine builds on the Bob Watson dyno, including the stunningly restored RHD 911S we did a feature on together. When a partnership at the Middle Aston unit eventually went sour, Bob upped sticks and went to work down south with Alan. After that, we lost touch.
In recent times, he had returned to Oxfordshire and was still booking work until he passed away last weekend. Yesterday, I heard he almost came to build engines at Tuthills last year, but they had just taken a new engine guy on at the time. It would have been good to see Bob over there every week.
People who knew Robert Bailey-Watson much better than I did will write great tributes to Bob in the Porsche press and I urge you to read them. Bob had his detractors (don’t we all), but I always found him excellent company and being around someone with so much Porsche knowledge, shared with unstinting generosity, was a genuine pleasure. He only worked on my cars twice, but he made them better both times. RIP Bob: you will be missed.
My Porsche 924 Turbo restoration project returned home this weekend, more than a year after it was painted by Rob Campbell at Racing Restorations. I had been storing it out in Worcestershire but recently lost the space, so it’s come home to be finished with a view to selling it sometime this summer for cash to plough back into my garage build.
This LHD non-sunroof Turbo is a nice example of the very cool Porsche 924. Having lived most of its life in Sardinia, this one is lower than average mileage, entirely rust free and still remarkably original. Despite being stored for more than twelve months and not being on a battery charger in all of that time, it started easily when the time came to load it on the trailer. It runs pretty well once warm – cold running is not great so will be taking a look at that. Bound to be something simple.
I spent a few hours on the 924 today and made some good progress. A few exterior bits have gone missing since the car was stripped for paint (probably still at Rob’s), so I excavated some of my 924 spares boxes and dragged out some prize pieces, including a brand new boot seal I bought from Porscheshop a few months ago. I put that on and made a little shopping list, which turned out to be quite a long shopping list in the end: more than £500 worth of rubber, including door seals, rear window seals and numerous detail parts including a new Porsche badge.
Other bits which were missing from the 924 when I bought it include the aluminium jack, spare wheel compressor and tool kit. I did find an ally jack and an old Blaupunkt Toronto stereo in my stash, which I need to test. I’ve stripped out the doors so I can clean and regrease the handles and lock mechs and also the electric window motors and regulators, which are notorious for seizing up. I’ll dynamat the doors and fit new membranes at the same time. I found a full lock set to replace all the mismatched keys, but no miracle finds can sort this steering wheel, which desperately needs a retrim, if not just swapping for a Momo Prototipo.
The carpets are quite faded from UV exposure, so I bought a good LHD carpet set last year, but I might try dyeing these carpets first as other 924 boys have had good results with carpet dye. Elsewhere, there’s a set of 205/60 15 Bridgestone tyres to go on and I’ll take some engine bits off for powdercoating to lift the underbonnet presentation.
It’s a good solid car in nice condition, so most of what it needs is simple. The hardest part will be UK registration. It is still Italian registered and I don’t have the Italian registration document, so getting it UK legal will be a bit of a ballache involving waiting for a Porsche Certificate of Authenticity and also getting it through an MOT, which will force me to fit a passenger mirror.
I don’t want to do screw anything into the bodywork permanently, as I like the uninterrupted line down the passenger side, so I’ve been looking at temporary fit mirrors which could be detached once the test has been passed. The single side mirror is an oddball European car throwback, which I have always quite liked. You have to hang on to these details.
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